The Ryder Cup is a bi-annual, three-day, team competition involving only match-play between the best professional golfers of the U.S. and the best of Europe. This competition reaches back to the 1930s, when it was between the U.S. and Great Britain. The U.S. had almost a lock on winning it for several decades. Then Jack Nicklaus suggested the opposing side be strengthened by including all of the rest of Europe. Since then, in 1978, the U.S. has been drastically on the losing side. Until today, the U.S. had lost the past eight out of ten Ryder Cups.
The Ryder Cup used to be just some friendly matches between these two groups. There has never been any prize money offered. Thus, winning the Ryder Cup is only a matter of pride. Soon after the competition started, it has always rotated across the pond each time, so it was often sort of a nice vacation for the visiting team. But that started to change when all of Europe was included in the mix. In recent decades, there has been an increasing amount of international interest in the Ryder Cup from more than just the golfing community. It has become one of the pro sports world’s elite competitions.
This weekend, the Cup was up for grabs at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota, a suburb or Minneapolis. The first two days were two-man team matches, and today it was only individual matches. Each match win is worth one point, and when there is a tie after 18 holes, each team gets one-half point rather than playing sudden death as in medal play competition. Each days has morning 18 hole matches and afternoon 18 hole matches. The captain of each team chooses who plays on his team. Some members of his team play both morning and afternoon. U.S. team captain this year was well-respected Davis Love III. Europe’s team captain was golf-fan favorite Darren Clarke. After the matches, Clarke admitted the U.S. had the better team.
The first day, on Friday, the U.S. got off to good start with five points to Europe’s three points, thus 5-to-3. Saturday, Europe closed the gap halfway with the U.S. finishing with 6.5 points to Europe’s 5.5 points. So, the tournament was still quite winnable today, on Sunday, by either side.
Despite Europe gaining some ground on Saturday, Lee Westwood was the goat. He lost one down to U.S. player Ryan Moore, who barely made the team. Westwood did so by missing three four foot putts on the closing holes of their 18-hole match, and then missing what looked like a less than two-foot putt on the last hole. Lee Westwood is regarded as the best professional golfer in the world to have not won a major championship. (There are four majors every year.) Lee is a very good ball striker; but he is known for collapsing under pressure, especially with the short stick.
The hottest player, and certainly the most animated, for the first two days was the American’s Patrick Reed. When he started the PGA Tour, he came across as so arrogant. He certainly has a lot of confidence in his game even though I think there are several players that outshine him with their golf swing and so forth. But Reed is surprising, and its because of his confidence. After the first two days, he contributed the most in U.S. points.
But today, Patrick Reed played an individual match with star player Rory McIlroy, who has recently recaptured the #1 Sony Player ranking in the world with his Tour Championship win last week. So, Rory was clearly the favorite. But those two played such brilliant golf in this match that television commentator Johnny Miller, no slouch himself to Ryder Cup competition, hailed it as one of the greatest television matches of all time.
As it turned out, Patrick Reed was the hero by leading the U.S. to a 17-11 point win. So, the Americans have finally reclaimed the Ryder Cup. But theoretically, it should be easier to win on your home soil. Let’s see if they can do it next time in the old country.
BTW, I competed in the U.S. Open at Hazeltine in 1970 and made the 36-hole cut. Britain’s Tony Jacklin won the tournament. Until then, Europeans could not win majors in the U.S., namely, the Masters, the U.S. Open, or the PGA Championship. But Jacklin’s win gave Europeans’ confidence, and they soon started winning several majors here, especially the Masters.
Tony Jacklin won that tournament by cruising to a whopping seven-stroke victory over American Dave Hill, known for his outspokenness. Case in point: some of Hazeltine National was built on land that used to be farmed, supposedly as a cornfield. And it was designed and built by Robert Trent Jones, who was probably the world’s most famous golf architect at that time. But Mr. Jones was not a favorite golf course architect by many of the leading pros on the PGA Tour, including Dave Hill. For example, when we played that tournament, the first hole, a par four, did a sharp dogleg in the fairway right about where the average pros’ drive landed. Pro golfers don’t like that at all.
Well, Tony was leading Dave Hill, who was second, going into the last round. Dave told us pros after the tournament that he was planning to drive a tractor to the clubhouse on Sunday morning, dressed in farm clothes, a farmer’s straw hat, and a corncob pipe in his mouth. He says he chickened out at the last moment.
To read two posts about some history and the origin of Ryder Cup, click here and here.
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